A-Ling appeared to be roughly the same age as Lucie, but she was more than half a head taller.
Unlike Lucie’s lively, hopping energy and her aura of a seasoned traveler of the jianghu, A-Ling was like an unsheathed blade. She radiated a sense of detachment that kept people at a distance.
"Hello."
Leon gave her a polite smile. He didn’t look down on her because of her youth; instead, he nodded quite courteously.
"I am Leon."
Instinct told him this girl was dangerous.
Anyone capable of instantly subduing Lucie was definitely no ordinary person.
A-Ling looked up, her cold eyes sweeping over Leon for a brief moment.
And then...
There was no 'and then.'
She lowered her gaze and said nothing, as if Leon were merely a pocket of air. It was quite rude.
"Uh..." Leon felt a bit awkward.
"Don't mind her, My Lord. That's just her personality."
Lucie, accustomed to this, quickly stepped in to smooth things over.
"She’s stone-faced and hates talking. She’s the type you couldn't squeeze a word out of even if you beat her with three sticks. Just treat her like air."
Leon glanced at A-Ling and waved it off with a smile. "It’s fine."
He had seen plenty of these 'cool and detached' character archetypes; usually, characters like this were very good at fighting.
"Then you sisters should catch up. I’ll go get the fire started again... This is truly tragic."
Leon tactfully walked to the side to restart the fire, giving the strange sisters some space.
Watching Leon walk away, A-Ling finally stepped toward Lucie.
She looked down at Lucie’s eyes, which were swollen like peaches. Though her expressionless face remained unchanged, a very faint hint of... disgust flashed in her eyes?
"Sister."
A-Ling’s voice remained cold.
"What happened here?"
"Didn't you say you were going to make some extra cash? How did you end up in this state? And..."
Her gaze swept toward Leon and Lucrezia in the distance.
"Why are you following those two? Who are they?"
"Oh, don't even get me started!"
Lucie sighed, lowering her voice and leaning into A-Ling’s ear with a mysterious expression.
"A-Ling, we’ve hit the jackpot this time! I’m telling you, those are two golden meal tickets..."
"Golden meal tickets?"
A-Ling’s expressionless face saw her eyebrows twitch upward in a nearly invisible arc.
She looked down at her sister, who was still clutching her eyes and groaning, then at Leon, who was poking the campfire with a small stick, looking 'profound and mysterious.'
"Sister, the last time you said you found a golden meal ticket, we ended up being tricked into mining for three months."
A-Ling’s voice was calm and pitiless as she exposed Lucie’s dark history.
"The time before that, you said you met a princess in distress. It turned out he was a wanted criminal, and we were chased across half the duchy by bounty hunters."
"This time... are you sure?"
"Argh! This time is different!"
Lucie grew frantic. Ignoring the pain in her eyes, she grabbed A-Ling’s sleeve and lowered her voice even further, her tone filled with zeal.
"This time it’s real! Realer than real gold!"
"Do you know about the big explosion in Kent Town? That was an abyss demon! And there was that 【Crowned】 rank Baron Hawthorne!"
Lucie gestured wildly with her hands.
"The scene was world-ending! And the result? This Lord Leon settled everything while laughing and chatting! Even Baron Hawthorne had to bow and scrape to him, and even had to give us money and horses! I even got 5 gold coins! That’s 5 gold coins! We might not even earn that much in a year!"
"And..."
Lucie looked left and right, then leaned in to whisper, "I suspect... he’s the specialist responsible for cleaning up after us! He might even be one of those 'envoys' who reports directly to the Emperor! He’s out here on a top-secret mission!"
"As long as we cling to this big shot and perform well... maybe we can get an official post!"
"An official post?"
A ripple finally appeared in A-Ling’s stagnant, pond-like eyes.
As a ronin swordsman living on the edge, an outsourced worker who always received meager pay that was often docked, the concept of a 'permanent establishment' held a fatal temptation for the sisters.
It meant social security, paid leave, and the stability of not having to sleep in the wild.
"Really?" A-Ling asked.
"Absolutely! Look at his 'accessory.' She’s a bit of an idiot, but one look tells you she’s no ordinary person!"
Lucie spoke with absolute conviction.
"A-Ling, for the sake of our pensions, we have to do this job! Just follow me, listen to my lead, speak less, and do more. Understood?"
A-Ling remained silent for a moment, her gaze sweeping over Leon once more.
The black-haired youth was holding a branch, drawing some complex magic circle on the ground (he was actually calculating how much longer they had to walk).
Though he looked unremarkable, perhaps even a bit frail, that surge of magical fluctuations from earlier...
A-Ling nodded.
"Fine. I’ll listen to you, Sister."
...
Just as the sisters reached an agreement.
"Yawn—"
A soft, cute yawn broke the silence.
Wrapped in her blanket and sleeping soundly, Lucrezia was finally woken by the commotion.
She rubbed her bleary eyes, poking her silver head out from behind Leon, and asked groggily:
"Smelly small fry... is it morning already? Is it time to eat? I think I smell roasted meat..."
And then.
Her gaze locked onto the opposite side of the fire.
There stood a woman she had never seen before.
Tall.
Too tall.
To Lucrezia, who was barely over 1.4 meters tall, this woman standing nearly 1.8 meters was like an insurmountable tower.
But what truly caused Lucrezia’s pupils to quake wasn't the height.
It was the two masses of fat on the woman’s chest that defied the laws of physics, casting large shadows in the firelight.
Gulp.
Lucrezia subconsciously swallowed, then looked down at her own chest, which remained a flat plain even wrapped in a blanket.
A sense of despair known as 'class disparity' welled up within her.
Immediately following it was a tidal wave of rage and jealousy!
"Where did this cow demon come from?!"
Lucrezia snapped awake instantly, jumping up from the ground like a cat with its fur standing on end. She pointed at A-Ling and shouted loudly:
"Shameless! To grow such vulgar things! Are you trying to smother someone to death?!"
"..."
A-Ling looked down at the little runt who wasn't even as long as her legs.
She remained expressionless; her eyes didn't even flicker. She simply spat out one word:
"Flatland."
"Aaaaaah! What did you say?! I’m going to kill you!!"
Lucrezia’s composure shattered instantly, and she lunged forward, flailing her arms to fight for her life.
Rate on N.U.
